UPDATE: The Avengers Smashes Opening Weekend Record

UPDATE: The weekend ticket sales have been tallied, and it seems that Disney put its estimate a little low on its uber-hyped superhero flick, The Avengers. Once everything was counted up, the film’s total weekend gross jumped from $200.3 million (estimated) to an astounding $207.4 million. That places the film almost $40 million above the former opening-weekend record-holder, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ($169.2 million).

On top of that huge domestic figure, director Joss Whedon’s The Avengers has also raked in $447.4 million overseas. Its worldwide total, in a whole 12 days of release, now stands at $654.8 million. Wow.

Coming in at number 2 for the weekend, and still performing very well, was Think Like a Man, last weekend’s surprising #1 film, with $8.1 million. That figure brings its total domestic gross so far to $73.1 million.

The Hunger Games played at #3 this weekend, earning $5.6 million, which now brings its cumulative domestic gross to $380.6 million. The Hunger Games has hauled in $617.6 million worldwide so far.

The weekend’s number 4, 5, and 6 earners — Pirates: Band of Misfits, The Lucky One, and The Five-Year Engagement — were separated by just a half-million dollars. Coming in at numbers 7 and 8 were two films released last weekend: Safe, starring Jason Statham, and Disney’s animal documentary Chimpanzee.

The Three Stooges was the number 9 film for the weekend, and rounding out the top ten was another Joss Whedon-scribed film, The Cabin in the Woods. Below are the weekend totals for the top 10.

Move over, Harry Potter, there’s a new set of box office kings — and they call themselves The Avengers.

Yesterday, we reported that The Avengers had grossed $80.5 million on Friday, putting it on pace for a $175 million opening weekend. Well, it seems that weekend figure was a tad low.

According to studio estimates, The Avengers amassed a whopping $200.3 million in ticket sales from Friday-Sunday, smashing the final Harry Potter installment’s previous record of $169.2 million. That makes it not only the largest opening weekend of all-time, but The Avengers is now the fastest film to reach the $200 million mark, doing so in 3 days.

It took both Harry Potter and The Dark Knight — the two most recent kings of the box office, and now the second and third best openings, respectively — a full 5 days to surpass $200 million.

For what it’s worth, The Avengers has benefitted from both 3D and IMAX surcharges; playing in 4,349 theaters, 3,364 of those theaters are showing the film in 3D — it is the largest 3D release for a film ever.

The film performed magnificently on Saturday — unlike Harry Potter — dropping from $80.5M on Friday to $69.7M on Saturday. That’s a 15% drop, a magnificent figure for any film. In two days alone, the film grossed $150.2 million, which means that Disney-Marvel is estimating that the film will make $50.1M on Sunday to bring it to the $200.3 million estimate.

That Sunday figure could prove to be low, with an A+ CinemaScore, a 94% rating on the Tomatometer, sitting at #31 on IMDb’s Top 250, and the fact that there really isn’t much else to see in theaters this weekend that hasn’t been out for a while already.

We’ll report back with an actual weekend figure tomorrow, but don’t be surprised if that figure trumps this $200.3 million estimate from the studio.